sendmail not working

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sendmail not working

donrtowery

3:48 pm on Mar 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

Hello,

I'm using the webmin gui to access sendmail config. I can send mail to user boxes on the local host, and I can send mail to addresses outside of our network, but I'm not able to send mail to users on our network. It returns with the message:

The original message was received at Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:06:59 -0600
from root@localhost

----- The following addresses had permanent fatal errors -----
drtowery@example.com
(reason: 550 5.1.1 <drtowery@example.com>... User unknown)
(expanded from: drtowery@example.com)

----- Transcript of session follows -----
... while talking to [127.0.0.1]:
>>> DATA
<<< 550 5.1.1 <drtowery@example.com>... User unknown
550 5.1.1 drtowery@example.com... User unknown
<<< 503 5.0.0 Need RCPT (recipient)

Any ideas what might cause this?

[edited by: coopster at 3:50 pm (utc) on Mar. 6, 2009]
[edit reason] please use example.com, thanks! [/edit]

mcavic

4:37 pm on Mar 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

It's because the server that's sending the message *is* example.com, so it doesn't know where else to send the message, and the username that you're trying to mail to doesn't exist on that server.

donrtowery

4:52 pm on Mar 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

ok, our webserver and our mailserver are on the same domain, how can I get sendmail on the webserver to send mail to our mail server?

mcavic

5:03 pm on Mar 6, 2009 (gmt 0)

Ah, got it. Each server needs a unique name, like mail.example.com. And then, the MX record for the domain should point to the mail server. If you have an internal DNS server, it needs the MX record also.

jeffatrackaid

2:31 am on Mar 10, 2009 (gmt 0)

If you email is hosted on a different server than your domain, you have to make sure your web server is not treating the domain as local. This is a common problem with hosting automation tools such as Plesk, cPanel, or Ensim.

If you are using a standard linux distribution, then you need to update the mailer tables to tell your web server to relay the email to your mail server.

jeffatrackaid

2:32 am on Mar 10, 2009 (gmt 0)

Also, MX records are ignored if the domain is treated as a local domain. Sendmail/Qmail/Postfix all consult the local mailer tables prior to checking DNS.